February 5, 2014
Did someone say “snow day?!” I guess after the past few winters we were due, and do remember this, it is winter. With that said, we are up to our 5 built in snow days for the school year so there’s a chance that we will need to modify the school calendar a bit in moving forward.
After serving as your school’s principal over the first half of the school year, I feel that the Califon staff is moving in the right direction. I see teachers, instructional aides, custodians, and support staff all doing their best in preparing your children for their future. There are a number of special programs that have begun including the Kids Care Club, Destination Imagination, TREP$, Reading Olympics, to name a few. These programs will continue, as they all benefit our children.
We held a few new meetings recently, including two that were supposed to have happened in December but were postponed due to Mother Nature. Our Fast ForWord parent meeting and webinar gave parents of the children participating in the program some information on how the brain works, the program itself, and how to utilize it at home. Our first Council of Instruction members met recently. The Council of Instruction has two overarching goals: 1) to ensure that the process of curriculum development and assessment is sustained and efficient, and 2) to serve as a liaison between the teaching staff and the Board of Education/administration for the purpose of involving all stakeholders in curriculum development. It consists of teachers, administration, one board member and one parent. Our agenda is already packed for our next meeting in February.
We held our first District Parent Advisory Committee meeting. These meetings will be held bi-monthly at various times either during the school day or in the evening. The goal of these meetings is for Dr. Jim and me to give you information on what has been occurring in the school, but more importantly to give you the opportunity to ask questions or bring ideas to us. It is another avenue that we feel is important in keeping the lines of communication open between you and us.
Aside from our updates, the following are a few of the items that were mentioned by parents at the meeting: to continue the push for our 8th grade students to receive Algebra instruction and to emphasize the Algebra program in preparing them for success in high school, an excitement at the idea of having an enrichment program that involves reading by implementing the Junior Great Books program, to post the Council of Instruction minutes on our website, and to look at the possibility of chrome books, etc. in order to save money with technology purchases. It was also mentioned that the parents have seen more rigor in their child’s school day, especially in the area of writing.
I did mention at the meeting that I have been amazed and delighted to see such positive parental involvement in the school community! It truly has been refreshing for me and I think that the transparency is important for all of you. I thanked all of the parents for this. As a result, another item worth mentioning happened during the meeting, and that was that the parents in attendance used the opportunity to thank all of us for our work in doing our best to make Califon School a great place to learn. To that, I said, “You’re welcome!” Our next meeting will be held during an evening in March. More information will be disseminated in the future regarding this.
Hopefully, you had a chance to check out the Rutgers’ video on our website. Ken and Maureen did an excellent job putting it together! We purchased more resources for teachers in the area of reading at all grade levels. Our “Guys Read” in the sixth through eighth grades is scheduled to start as soon as it stops snowing. I'm looking forward to reading with the sixth through eighth grade boys!
Two final thoughts: we are planning on moving to an online grade book in the future. It’s a possibility that it will happen in the fourth marking period, but it will certainly happen for next year. We will also be utilizing online report cards next year. I am in the process of continuing our Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) initiative by scheduling a Siemens Science Day – Learning by Doing. I am aiming to do this sometime in March.
Now, if you don’t mind, I need to knock the 224 icicles off my gutters that have beautifully formed around the perimeter of my house! Take care and stay warm!
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